A simple Markdown viewer and editor for Linux and Windows. Opens a rendered view of a Markdown file without starting a heavyweight application, and the source view lets you edit and save a copy.

• Renders Markdown with tables, fenced code blocks and footnotes
• Toolbar with open, copy, raw source toggle and zoom controls
• Syntax highlighting for code blocks (when Pygments is installed)
• Follows the system light/dark theme
• Reloads automatically when the file changes on disk
• Relative links to other Markdown files open in the same window
• External links open in the default browser
• Zoom with Ctrl + scroll wheel
• The source view is editable; "Save as..." writes a copy, so the opened file is never modified in place

• Python 3
• pywebview
• markdown
• Pygments (optional, for syntax highlighting)
• pymdown-extensions (optional, for task lists and strikethrough)

QuickMD renders through WebKitGTK, so the GTK bindings and WebKit engine come from your distribution.

Fedora:

sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk3 webkit2gtk4.1

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-webkit2-4.1

Arch:

sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk3 webkit2gtk-4.1

Python packages:

pip install pywebview markdown pygments pymdown-extensions

A prebuilt quickmd.exe that runs without Python is attached to each release.

To run from source instead: rendering uses the WebView2 runtime that ships with Windows 10 and 11, so only the Python packages are needed:

pip install pywebview markdown pygments pymdown-extensions

To build a standalone quickmd.exe that runs without Python installed:

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller --onefile --windowed --name quickmd quickmd.py

The executable appears in dist\quickmd.exe. You can associate it with .md files through "Open with" in Explorer.

Place this desktop entry at ~/.local/share/applications/quickmd.desktop (update paths accordingly):

[Desktop Entry]
Name=QuickMD
Comment=Quickly view and edit Markdown files
Exec=/path/to/quickmd.py %f
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;Viewer;
MimeType=text/markdown;
Keywords=Markdown;Viewer;Editor;
StartupNotify=true

Then run:

chmod +x /path/to/quickmd.py
update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/

This adds QuickMD to the "Open with" list for .md files. It only touches the current user's registry, no administrator rights needed. Update the script path accordingly:

$pyw = (Get-Command pythonw).Source
$cmd = '"{0}" "C:\path\to\quickmd.py" "%1"' -f $pyw
New-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\QuickMD.md\shell\open\command' -Force | Out-Null
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\QuickMD.md' -Name '(default)' -Value 'Markdown Document'
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\QuickMD.md\shell\open' -Name 'FriendlyAppName' -Value 'QuickMD'
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\QuickMD.md\shell\open\command' -Name '(default)' -Value $cmd
if (-not (Test-Path 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\.md\OpenWithProgids')) { New-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\.md\OpenWithProgids' -Force | Out-Null }
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\.md\OpenWithProgids' -Name 'QuickMD.md' -Value ''

To remove it again:

Remove-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\QuickMD.md' -Recurse
Remove-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\.md\OpenWithProgids' -Name 'QuickMD.md'

Linux:

python3 quickmd.py                    # Launch empty, open a file with Ctrl+O
python3 quickmd.py /path/to/file.md   # Open a specific file

Windows, use pythonw so no console window appears:

pythonw quickmd.py C:\path\to\file.md

Renaming the script to quickmd.pyw has the same effect when double-clicking it. The PyInstaller build (--windowed) also runs without a console.

MIT License